Things to do in the flower garden for October

In the flower garden:

• Finish planting spring-flowering bulbs except tulips.
• Wait another two wees to begin planting tulips.
• Shred fallen hardwood leaves and use for mulch.
• Finish planting, transplanting spring and summer-fowering perennials.
• Order dormant roses, lily bulbs for November planting.

In the food garden:

• Harvest Brussels sprouts from the bottom up.
• Plant radishes for Thanksgiving dinner.
• Leave leeks, carrots, beets, spinach in the garden for harvest as needed.
• Wait until after frost sweetens kale, parsnips to begin harvest.
• Bundle spent corn stalks for Halloween decoration.

In the house:

• Deprive poinsettias, holiday cactus of all light from sundown to sunup.
• Make succession plantings of paper white narcissus.
• Allow amaryllis to go dormant.
• Water succulents only every three to four weeks, just enough to keep them from shriveling.
• Pinch back leggy vines for fuller grownth.

On the lawn:

• Keep leaves raked from grass.
• Continue mowing until growth stops.
• Treat germinating checkweed with a selective herbicide.
• Lime any time between now and spring.
• Fertilize if none has been spread since September.